In the Unlikely Event

When I’m back, Rory is all packed, sullen and ready to go. It looks like she’s been crying the entire time since I fucked her with a candy bar.

I feel awful, but I’ll feel worse if she ends up with Prince Preppy Pants. He will bore her to death, and I don’t want her death on my conscience.

I drive us to the airport in complete silence. It’s only when we get comfortable in our first-class seats on the plane that Rory opens her mouth again. I think she is about to tell me I’m a cunt, but she surprises me.

“How did I get my scar?”

I spit my soda all over my lap. A sincere burn in hell would have been nicer than this loaded question. I frown to buy time, but my heart rate accelerates.

“You’re asking me?”

She nods, staring me down.

“Didn’t you say you were born with it?” In my head, I envision myself running with a cart through aisles in the supermarket, desperately shopping for more time.

“That’s my mother’s version, and I’m starting to doubt it. Ms. Patel from the newsagents told me there’s a horrible story behind my scar. Your grandfather walked in before she had a chance to tell me.”

“Ms. Patel also believes in ghosts and that people with blue eyes see everything in a blue hue.”

That’s a flat-out lie, actually, but I’d rather jump off this plane using Rory’s knickers as a parachute than hurt her the way the truth would.

It is not that I don’t want to tell her the truth, but when so much of it is about to be unveiled, it is best to wait, to ease her into a situation, then sit her down properly.

“I still want to know what the rumor is,” she insists.

“Yes, of course, I suppose. Thing is, I’m not exactly attuned to small-town gossip.”

I don’t add that most of the gossip in Tolka relates to me.

“But your grandfather knows,” she persists. “Why would he keep that from me?”

“To protect you?” I pick up a travel magazine and pretend to flip through it.

In my head, there are red sirens blaring everywhere. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK. Mini Mals are running around, yanking their hair out.

She’s onto us! Somebody do something!

“I’m going to ask him.” She taps her knee with her fingers, munching on her lip.

“You do that.”

She stares at me skeptically. I think she knows I know, and it’s killing me not to be completely honest with her. I wish I could telepathize to her that I will explain, soon. That there are stages. That she doesn’t know everything about me yet, and before she makes up her mind, she needs to really understand.

We all pitied the American girl with the backpack and the camera and the broken dream.

I screwed her and kissed her and promised her marriage and took all her secrets, while not giving her the only truth she ever cared about and came all the way to Ireland for.

Rory clamps her mouth shut, then opens it again.

“You won’t tell me whose birthday it was, and you refuse to tell me about the rumors surrounding me. You won’t talk about Kath’s death. Can you at least show me a song so I can take a picture of it for my project? It’s coming together well, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

I know it must be a nightmare for her to live in Tolka.

People either hate her for being the girl Kathleen was forsaken for or pity her for being the girl who made that thing with Glen happen. Between me being a massive, purple dick and Richards being Richards, Rory—the only person who takes this project seriously—is helpless.

I lift my arse from the seat and take my notebook out of my back pocket, handing it to her. She opens it to a random page, her green eyes gliding over the text, line by line, as she moves her lips in the shape of the words.

He calls you love.

I call you darlin’.

You say you’re happy.

I think you’re drowning.

We promised each other so many things.

Now I don’t even think you know what they mean.

Call the press.

You’re a mess.

You make me so fucking depressed.

Trying to make everything right, shiny, pretty, and tight.

So tired of waiting for you to see the light.

He calls you love.

I call you darlin’.

You say you’re safe.

I think you’re spiraling.

If you want the truth, kiss me hard.

Or at the very least, lower your guard.

She gives it back to me and looks away to the window. The sky is wooly and gray.

“I’ll find my truth, Mal. I will.” She ignores the words she just read.

My chest tightens. I seriously underestimated Shiny Boyfriend’s grip on her. Or maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s the idea of him. The idea of me. Maybe dating an idiot who spent the last decade making a living writing hate songs about her doesn’t sound too hot.